Boothbay Region Ambulance Service has launched our second annual fundraiser and is approaching phase two of our annual appeal mailing. Fundraising is an important way we limit our town subsidy requests and fund essential equipment.

Last year, Laura Honey was our fundraising chairman and we are pleased to announce that Brenda Blackman has graciously agreed to chair our fundraising campaign this year. Brenda is a loyal, steadfast and respected member of the community, who has been involved in many charitable community events. She represents the same commitment to community that we do. We share her passion for making our community the best it can be and our ambulance service the best possible.

Last year was our first undertaking of this type of letter appeal and was our most ambitious fundraising campaign to date. We reached almost 80 percent of our goal, raising just under $40,000 through the generosity of our communities. We are extremely pleased with the response we had.

This year our fundraising target is $65,000. We started our mailing campaign in August and so far the response and community support has been amazing, with almost $12,000 raised. We are now preparing our second round of mailings and hope to get them all out by the end of the month.

We are grateful for the generosity of a new station, but we still have significant unmet needs, including a new ambulance. With the need to transport patients out of the region on a regular basis, the wear and tear on out fleet has significantly increased. While we carefully negotiated the price of a new ambulance and pared down from what we have and what we typically use in our fleet, the cost is $140,000, without equipment. We are looking for community support to help defray this expense. We are funding a portion of the cost of the ambulance with our capitol reserve account and hope that the 2016 fundraiser will fill the gap, so we can finance as little as possible.

Last year, the Boothbay Region Ambulance Service responded to approximately 1,800 calls, and are anticipating this year’s volume to be just as busy.

We thank everyone who has generously supported us and look forward to another great year, and a new ambulance, so we can continue to meet the needs of our communities. Please look for our appeal letter in the mail.